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EU Farmers to Get Money Back as Crisis Fund Not Spent

EU - European farmers will be reimbursed €410 million, which was deducted from farmers' CAP Direct Payments for the 2015 budget year.

The money was supposed to be used to create this year's so-called agricultural crisis reserve.

But in spite of a number of critical situations in the agricultural sector in the past year, the European Commission said it was not necessary to touch the crisis reserve in 2015.

The additional support measures taken during 2015 were financed from existing budgetary availabilities in 2015, while the €500 million support package announced in the autumn, primarily for the milk sector, will only lead to EU expenditure from the 2016 budget.

Meanwhile, a total of €284 million of EU agricultural policy funds is being reclaimed by the Commission after it was "unduly spent" by EU member states.

Eighteen member states had overspent, including Denmark, Germany, France and the UK.

The Commission said that these budget management decisions should be seen in relation to the overall CAP expenditure which is around €55 billion per year.